Faith-Empowered Bible Verses That Can Help Support Recovery and Life Transformation
Step 8: Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.
James 1:2-4 – Tribulation in Recovery: Being Hard on Ourselves but Considerate of Others
2 Consider it all joy, my brothers and sisters, when you encounter various trials, 3 knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. 4 And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
Why would someone volunteer to make amends to everyone on their inventory? If you are looking at a fresh inventory right now, you can pinpoint the most obvious ones you resist.
There may even be times when a strong sense of “they don’t deserve amends” arises, driving further from wanting to make amends. Doesn’t that signal an area that Steps Four and Five failed? You are still focused on their part, as if it nullifies your part. If you did those steps right, you put out of your mind the wrongs others had done and looked for where you were wrong because the inventory is about what is wrong in our lives, not what is wrong with everyone else on the planet that we have ever encountered.
That is the point here in Steps Eight and Nine: Keep putting out of your mind the wrongs others have done and repent for the wrongs you have done.
Putting out of your mind the wrongs others have done and repent for the wrongs you have done.
Another “why” is for growth. This is a massive test of your faith. This is a step towards cleansing what has been blocking you off from God. It may not feel like it, and every part of your being may resist all this, but you take a giant leap of faith and do this anyway. This leap of faith will teach you to push through and endure, and your continued drive to do that will lead to the “perfect result” of you being complete and lacking in nothing.
What if your why is tied to not being completely sold on the idea of all of this? At the more obvious level, that is a breakdown of all the Steps up to this point and may signal a more catastrophic breakdown of the whole process at some point. You may need to return to the previous steps and redo parts of them.
There is also a blunter answer:
Remember it was agreed at the beginning we agreed we would go to any lengths for victory…
Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 76
Translated bluntly: “That’s what it says to do for recovery, so I should do it even if I don’t get it.” We vowed and swore several times throughout the process that we were so desperate that we would do anything to be free. As I keep repeating, any belief we have about our commitment is only a theory until tested repeatedly by the real world. Here is a test of that commitment. Was it real or just another of those intense feelings we all get that are not genuinely authentic?
James 2:26 – True Recovery Requires Putting Action to Your Faith
26 For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.
This phase of the Twelve Steps is a natural extension of our recovery work so far. It is also a natural extension of our faith journey after learning what we have learned in the previous steps.
Everything so far has been a build-up to this moment.
- The First five steps are a build-up
- Steps Six through Eight are the faith checks and God power connection points
- Steps Nine through Twelve are actions of a new life with the faith and empowerment we have from our connection to God
Reminding ourselves that we have decided to go to any lengths to find a spiritual experience, we ask that we be given strength and direction to do the right thing no matter what the personal consequence may be. We may lose our position or reputation or face jail, but we are willing. We have to be. We must not shrink at anything.
Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 79
This is a Step Eight driving paragraph from the source document for all Twelve Step programs. These are the critical points for the praying we are doing over the list and the reason we should be doing any of this at all.
We have vowed to God to go to any length for a “spiritual experience.”
Previously, when the Alcoholics Anonymous book spoke of our commitment to go to any lengths, it spoke of victory over alcohol or, by extension, our addictions. However, they decided to remind us that we have vowed to God to go to any length for a “spiritual experience.” The new mindset we should have gained in Steps Six and Seven and throughout the earlier steps is that this spiritual experience will include sobriety. Still, the spiritual experience is the desperate need we have.
This is another level of that commitment. That “vow” we made to God that we should not hesitate to repay. That commitment is only a theory until it is tested in the real world, and here is that test. Are you willing to go to jail or swallow your pride and be humiliated in search of a deeper relationship with God? In striving for that “spiritual experience?”
Proverbs 28:13-14 – Twelve Step Wrongs inventory: Those Concealing Will Fall Into Disaster, but Those Who Confess and Abandon them Will Prosper.
One who conceals his wrongdoings will not prosper, But one who confesses and abandons them will find compassion. 14 How blessed is the person who fears always, But one who hardens his heart will fall into disaster.
This is the tone and the heart behind all of this. Step Eight sets and verifies this tone before we go and live it out. Are we still at the point of concealing our wrongs from that huge Step Four inventory we have, or are we truly committed to going to any length for this? Was our vow to God legitimate or just empty words?
Yes, there is a long period of reconstruction ahead. We must take the lead. A remorseful mumbling that we are sorry won’t fill the bill at all.
Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 83
Step Eight is a reality check. It is where you assess what you are really about to do realistically and then confirm that you are ready to do all that. If not, then you pray and work towards being prepared before continuing. That is why it is an entire step, not just a subsection of Step Nine.
Step Eight is a reality check.
For this to fully disclose what you are getting into, we have to define the word “amends.” That is, after all, what is coming next.
Looking at the dictionary, “amends” is defined as follows:
: compensation for a loss or injury : RECOMPENSE
“Amends.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/amends. Accessed 27 Jul. 2023.
trying to make amends for his bad behavior
That means what you are getting ready to do in Step Eight is not to say you are sorry. That means that you are getting ready to say you are sorry, putting out of your mind the wrongs others did, and then trying to provide compensation or otherwise make up for whatever you are apologizing for, even if a part of you doesn’t honestly believe that person or group does not deserve it.
So why do it:
WHY DO THIS?!?!
We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.
Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being fulfilled among us – sometimes quickly sometimes slowly. They will materialize if we work for them.
Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 84
Now, if you are at this point, consider all of that and the vow made to God and ask:
“Am I truly ready to make amends to everyone on my list or not?”
If you say yes to every single one, write a simple list of all the names and what you are making amends for and you are at Step Nine.
“Am I truly ready to make amends to everyone on my list or not?”
(NOTE: the new list is so you don’t carry around a list of what they did etc. – Some people just list the names so that others cannot sneak a peek at your amends, and other people just use the Fourth Step list)
If not yes to every single one, you are still working on Step Eight. That is precisely why this step is here in the first place. Keep praying and working until you are.